How to Grow Your Mailing List With Solo Ads

Updated: October 13th, 2024

If you’re new to the email marketing game, or maybe just reassessing how it’s going so far, you’ve probably noticed that one of the biggest challenges is getting a lot of subscribers.

And not just any subscribers, either; I’m talking about people who want to be on your mailing list. People who will open your emails, click on your links, and buy products that you recommend.

Solo ads allow you to get more of these fantastic subscribers, and fast. So let’s look at how it’s done…

1. Make Sure You Have a Well-Optimized Squeeze Page

Do you have a squeeze page? If not, work on getting one set up. If you do, make sure you’ve optimized the following elements:

• An Enticing Opt-In Bribe: Give them a reason to sign up to your list right there and then. Have something like a free e-book or report that they will receive when they sign up. Make sure it’s something of high quality that your niche audience would find useful. Don’t just throw up any old random thing.
• A Compelling Headline: If the headline on your squeeze page falls flat, so will your opt-in rate. Make sure to ask yourself: What do they want? What am I offering them? How can I get the main benefit across quickly but effectively? Try out this free headline generator.
• A Benefit-Focused Description: Make a list of all the benefits that come from your opt-in bribe. If it’s an ebook or a free video, outline what’s taught in it, what they’ll be able to do with it. This is your chance to convince them that they need to sign up and get it.
• Social Proof: If you’ve managed to get any social praise for your giveaway (comments or reviews on Facebook for example) include a screenshot of that on your squeeze page. If you don’t have that yet, start by putting social sharing buttons on the squeeze page. This makes it look more trustworthy, and sets you up to have some social proof down the line.

Recommended Tools For Building Squeeze Pages

2. Find Other Marketers With Relevant Subscriber Lists

Look at other websites in your niche, and keep an eye out for opt-in forms.

If you see an opt-in form, it means that website has its own mailing list.

The best part is: Because that website is in the same niche as you, it’s highly likely that their subscribers are already interested in your niche.

These are the subscribers you want, all in one place.

You can also find Solo Ad sellers on Facebook – just do a search.

TrafficZest is a platform that gathers all the best solo ad sellers in one place and click prices are usually lower than on Udimi.

You bid for clicks and the ad sellers you pick will send ads out for you, assuming your bid is within their price range.

The only down-side with TrafficZest is that you have to lodge at least $100 on the platform before you can start buying clicks and top-ups must be at least $100 each.

Another place to find safelists to advertise on is the M3 inner Circle.

This has hundreds of top-quality safelists incorporated into its platform and when you send out a solo ad, the ad is automatically sent to all the safelists you sign up with.

It offers a lot more than that, so definitely check out what it offers instead of dismissing it out of hand – the link takes you to a very special offer that will save you hundreds of dollars a month in advertising costs.

Setup will take some time, but add a few safelists per day and your email reach will just grow and grow.

3. Ask About Their List

If you find a Solo Ad seller on line through your research, message the site owner or manager to ask about their list.

Ask if they sell solo ads, or if they would consider it.

If they’re not interested, no biggie; just move on and try another. If they are interested, ask them about their list.

How responsive is their audience? What’s the open rate? How much would they charge to run an ad?

Another route to take is to ask if they would be interested in doing an ad swap – you send an email to their list and they send an email to yours.

4. Decide Whether It’s A Good Deal

Once you know how responsive their list is and how much they’d charge (if you’re buying traffic), think about how much you make from your own newsletter series.

Do you think you’re likely to get a decent return on this investment?

Your goal is to get as many of their subscribers as you can to click through to your page, sign up for your mailing list, and eventually buy something you promote in your email series.

If your newsletter series isn’t set up to make money well yet, focus on that first.

Do you have an ongoing series that promotes products? Or do you send an email every now and then promoting special deals?

If you think you could make more from these subscribers than you’d spend getting them, it’s time to give it a go.

Your initial goal should be to break even. When you can do this, then you can get as much traffic as you want as the ad costs will be recouped in sales.

This way you can continue to build your list for no additional out-of-pocket expenses. If you do make profit, then that gives you an opportunity to take that profit for yourself or reinvest it in buying more traffic and scaling up your list building efforts.

5. Write a Killer Ad

If you decide to go ahead with a solo ad, make sure your ad is up to scratch.

If it fails to excite the readers, you could come out short.

With some solo ad services like Udimi, you only need to submit the URL (web address) you want to promote and the list owner will create the email for you.

I talked about using Udimi in this post.

Really get into the head of your audience. Include a relatable statement that outlines problems they could be facing.

Then, entice them by leading up to the solution.

Give them a strong call to action, telling them they can get the full solution for free on your page.

Be sure to give them a clear link to follow.

Once again, make sure the benefits of your freebie have been thoroughly outlined.

You want them to WANT to come and join your list.

Like anything that you’re putting money into, solo ads can be a risk.

It can take you a couple of tries to get it right. Some lists are more responsive or cheaper than others.

Some opt-in pages convert better than others.

It’s about figuring out what will work best for you.

If you’re still not too sure about paid traffic and want to get into affiliate marketing the easy way, then AffiloBlueprint offers you the ultimate step-by-step outline for getting started.

AffiloBlueprint covers solo ads in the advanced part of the course, as well as a variety of other proven marketing strategies, so you really can’t go wrong making money this way.

Of course, getting people to join your list is just the first step. You need to keep marketing to them so that you make sales and income.

If you don’t want to write emails yourself or feel you don’t have the copywriting skills needed to craft emails that will get a good response from your subscribers, you could always buy a collection of done-for-you emails.

The emails are written by one of the top marketers in the business.

Alternatively, since AI is now a thing, you can ask ChatGPT to write the email for you.

Just ask it to write the email/ad as an expert copywriter!

Or you can use multi-AI platform services like MagAI or OneAI to write ads, emails, content and create images for you.

Here are some additional Solo Ad resources for getting leads:

• Udimi
• TrafficZest
• Done For You Emails
• Solo Ads Testimonials (Facebook Group)
• TopSurfer

I’d appreciate any feedback you have on using solo ads for traffic and any suggestions for tools you’ve come across that you think I should include in the above list. Just sound off in the comments…

All the best,

Gary Nugent

Check out my Instagram posts and reels here:

Follow me (@garynugentmentoring) on Instagram

P.S.: Don't forget, if you want to create an internet income of your own, here's one of my recommended ways to do that: